The Rest of Us Just Live Here

Not everyone has to be the Chosen One. Not everyone has to be the guy who saves the world. Most people just have to live their lives the best they can, doing things that are great for them, having great friends, trying to make their lives better, loving people properly. All the while knowing that the world makes no sense but trying to find a way to be happy anyway.

Feelings don't try to kill you, even the painful ones. Anxiety is a feeling grown too large. A feeling grown aggressive and dangerous. You're responsible for its consequences, you're responsible for treating it. But...you're not responsible for causing it. You're not morally at fault for it. No more than you would be for a tumor.

Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week’s end of the world and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life.

The mistake of every young person is to think they're the only ones who see darkness and hardship in the world." ... "The mistake of every adult, though, is to think darkness and hardship aren't important to young people because we'll grow out of it. Who cares if we will? Life is happening to us now, just like it's happening to you.

I feel like I'm way down this deep, deep hole and I'm looking up and all there is is this little dot of light and I have to shout at the top of my lungs for anyone to hear me and even when I do, I say the wrong thing or they don't really listen or they're just humouring me.

We share out craziness, our neuroses, our little bit of screwed-up-ness that comes from our family. We share it. And it feels like love.

And yeah, I know most people would think it weird that two guy friends touch as much as we do, but when you choose your family, you get to choose how it is between you, too. This is how we work. I hope you get to choose your family and I hope it means as much to you as mine does to me.

What's important is that I know how much you worry about shit. And what's also important is that I know a big part of your worry is that, no matter what group of friends you're in, no matter how long you've known them, you always assume you're the least-wanted person there. The one everyone else could do without.

It felt like waiting for something to happen. Which has to be the worth part of being young. So many of your decisions aren't yours; they're made by other people. Sometimes they're made badly by other people. Sometimes they're made by other people who have no idea what the consequences of those decisions might be. The bastards.

But I don't care what you think, not about these things anyway. If you don't think they're real or important or you think that we'll all grow out of this nonsense, well, that's not really my business. I can't tell you what's real for you. But in return, you can't say what's real for me either. I get to choose. Not you.

We're just as screwed up and brave and false and loyal and wrong and right as anyone else.

But it's a tradition, as if that alone is reason enough. Slavery and buying your wife were traditions, too.

You always assume you're the least-wanted person there. The one everyone else could do without.

We're each other's questions, aren't we? The question that never gets an answer.

Now you're sure we are not going to be murdered?" Call Me Steve says, actually looking a bit nervous. "Prom night. Group of diverse teens. Remote cabin…

If you're too specific, people will purposely mishear you so they can be outraged about whatever thing that usually outrages them.

What's the point of lying about anything? We could keep being too afraid to say we don't know stuff and then the future will come and eat us anyway and we'll regret not doing all that stuff we wished we did.

Just remember, please, most of that stuff is in the past. It isn't the story I want to tell. At all. You needed to know it, but for the rest of this, I'm choosing my own story. Because if you can't do that, you might as well just give up.

What do you do when your dreams are about to come true?" she asks. "No one ever tells you. They tell you to chase them, but what happens when you actually catch one?" "You enjoy it. Do your best, try not to be a dick.

I love that you're worried,' she says, 'but you're worried about all the wrong things.

Funny how you can forget that every family isn't like yours.

Mikey," she says, but not like she's about to say anything more, just like she's identifying me, making a place for me here that's mine to exist in. I want her so much, my heart feels heavy, like I'm grieving. Is this what they meant about that stomach feeling? They didn't say it felt this sad.

It'll make you look rugged,' Mel says. 'Because I woke up this morning,' I say, 'and the one thing I realized I lacked was ruggedness.

I don't do pity kisses," she says. "I don't do pity anything. Pity is patronizing. Pity is an assumption of superiority." "That sounds like your dad." "It is my dad, but he's right. He says kindness is better. Kindness is the most important thing of all. Pity is an insult. Kindness is a miracle.

But this, all this, isn't the story I'm trying to tell. This is all past. This is the part of your life where it gets taken over by other people's stories and there's nothing you can do about it except hold on tight and hope you're still alive at the end to take up your own story again. So that's what we did. Me, Mel, and Meredith all moved on, and we're the stories we're living now. Aren't we?

The wind picks up a little more (Terribly sorry, I imagine it saying; apparently, the wind is British, wondering how it got all the way over here)

Not everyone has to be the Chosen One. Not everyone has to be the guy who saves the world. Most people just have to live their lives the best they can, doing the things that are great for them, having great friends, trying to make their lives better, loving people properly. All the while knowing that the world makes no sense but trying to find a way to be happy anyway.